Valence

We were up at 7.30 so we could feed ourselves a good breakfast and then headed to the station for one of our longest train days. 

We were off to Valence.  We took the local train to Mulhouse, then the TGV from Mulhouse to Valence TGV and then a local train into Valence ville.  Met a lovely French man on the last train, who recommended we do a bike ride on our full day.

 We got to the Hôtel de France wthout any bother.  2 x air-conditioned rooms, yeah!  It was hot, hot, hot.  We decided to have showers and then go out for a little explore.  We looked around the park which is supposed to be the main attraction in the town, but it has obviously been too hot for too long and was brown and deserted.  We headed into town and found a nice square with bars, so sat down, had a panaché each and then went for another little look, but it was too hot, so we went back to our hotel room for a rest and decided to try again at 7.  

We met in the lobby at 7, played Uno and then headed out, it was a little cooler, we went back to the square found an outdoor table and enjoyed burgers x 2 for the boys and pasta and prawns for me.

Matt and I did quite a bit of research trying to find what to do in Valence, we couldn't find anything that wasn't archeology / art so we decided to go with the man's recommendation and hire some bikes.  We found a place to hire them for and then got ourselves on the bike trail: Via Rhona which hugs the Rhône from Geneva to Marseille.  It was flat (phew) and although it was screamingly hot (it got up to 40 degrees today) by cycling we were creating a breeze which actually made the heat more manageable.  The first bit was along the river, in the shade, we met a lovely friendly man who's parents lived in Camberley for a while, so he had some English (better than our French anyway!) In fact most of our interactions have been good, lots of friendly people.  People on the whole do revert to English when they hear us, but less so in Valence.  We haven't heard a British accent since arrival, we have seen a couple of cars, but that's it.

Luckily the bike route, which was apart from the road, took us straight past an Intermarché so we stopped there for a cold drink and then continued on our way.  The route took us into the French countryside, we passed nectarine (or where they plum) groves, a leaning castle tower, and a number of small villages.   En route, we saw an advert for a bakery, so decided to head there for lunch,  It was in the beautiful village of Charmes du Rhône.  We got there 30 mins before it shut (phew).  Tom and Matt shared a slice of pizza whilst I had a gorgeous raspberry tart.  We all had cold drinks.  The village was what I would describe as a typical rural French village - all shutters, stone and cobbles.  All very quiet.  

 We decided that we were as far as we were going to go, it was getting hotter and our bums were beginning to ache, so we headed back more or less the same way - didn't seem so far on the way home.  We stopped at the Intermarché again for a cold drink each and then arrived back in Valence.  We did have to climb a hill back up to the hire shop and I was concerned I would have trouble as these bikes were very heavy, but it wasn't a problem, I surprised myself!

We handed the bikes back, went to the hotel had a shower before we did anything, then a bit of a rest before heading out to the nearby Laverie with two big bags of sweaty clothes. (Very reasonable under €10 to do it all including drying - cost that for one item in the hotel!)

We then hid from sun in our air conditioned rooms until 7pm when we met in the lobby for Uno and then headed out to the same square (but different restaurant) for tea.  Cliques Ardechoises for Matt and I - a local delicacy (bit like a rösti) and a pizza for Tom.  A creme brûlée for Tom and Matt and I shared a mousse au chocolat.  Then back home, early night, we were all exhausted- didn't see any of the England world cup football match but woke up to find we had won.